Some interviewees talk up a big game. And some interviewers are too forgiving. "He fudged blah, but he probably meant factory pattern. Hired!"
Fizz buzz you can't skate around. Either you know how to implement something, or you don't.
Fizz buzz you can't skate around. Either you know how to implement something, or you don't.
I'd actually have to think for a minute on how to do fizz buzz right now, simply because it is so far remove from the actual engineering workflow.
Err, what? Fizzbuzz is NOT a riddle. It's intentionally meant to be a stupid simple test, and everyone has written stupid simple code at some point. Even as a "senior engineer" you'll have to write dumb business logic code, even if it's only occasional.
If you really struggle with fizzbuzz it would almost assuredly be a sign that you would really struggle to write quality software in a timely manner. It's also a sign that you really aren't familiar with even the basic control flow of your chosen language, which is similarly worrying.
The only part of fizzbuzz that's "removed from the actual engineering workflow" is MAYBE the modulus operation, which I'm willing to bet most interviewers probably won't give a shit if you goof on the syntax a little and write "%" when you should've written "%%".
And even then, a perfectly acceptable fizzbuzz can be written without using mod if you're not familiar with that basic arithmetic operation.
This type of attitude is highly suspicious.
If you're not the kind of person who thinks fizz buzz is trivial, then there are actual red flags.
The idea of "fizzbuzz" is to show basic understanding of language control structures and flow. Better, more universal tests that actually use language constructs that are encountered in daily operation could definitely be devised to demonstrate the same fundamental concepts.